Special Issues of Journals

Ecoregions for Environmental Management

This is a special issue of Environmental Management: Ecoregions for Environmental Management. The Environmental Management ecoregions issue is the result of a symposium titled “Ecoregionalization: Establishing the State of the Practice and Setting a Future Science Agenda” that was held at the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, Sioux Falls, SD, in September 2001. This issue was organized because ecoregions are units of analysis that are increasingly important in environmental assessment and management. Twenty-four authors from federal agencies (FS, EPA, USGS), research laboratories, and universities were invited to prepare a series of 9 papers in order to assess the state of the art of this important topic. The papers explore the genesis of the ecoregion concept, examine the conceptual development of ecoregion classification systems, investigate applications of ecoregion classification systems for a broad range of purposes, and discuss the prospects for the further evolution of this concept. These papers are available online.